West Spring Valley Reinvestment Strategy

The West Spring Valley Corridor is one of six Enhancement/Redevelopment areas identified in the City of Richardson's 2009 Comprehensive Plan. These areas were identified as worthy of further study due to changes in the development market, demographics, technology, or building format since their original development. The Richardson City Council, the surrounding neighborhood, and the community as a whole were all very interested in pursuing a comprehensive redevelopment and reinvestment strategy for the West Spring Valley Corridor, which was selected for the inaugural study.

Purpose of the Study

The objective of the West Spring Valley Corridor Reinvestment Study was to create a redevelopment and reinvestment strategy for the study area reflecting an understanding of community goals, market realities, physical constraints, political priorities, and public and private financial resources. The strategy provides:

Recommendations regarding an appropriate mix of uses and product types;

An understanding of investment barriers;

Identification of financing mechanisms;

Insight gained by engaging various private sector audiences;

An approach for leveraging public sector investment;

Measures of success

The study has produced a strategy that will attract appropriate businesses, stimulate the redevelopment of underutilized and underperforming properties, improve the physical appearance of both public spaces and private property, and provide general guidance to the City and private sector interests on Corridor reinvestment issues.

Study Area

The Corridor consists of 197 acres generally bounded by Coit Road, a six-lane divided arterial, on the west; Central Expressway (US Highway 75), an eight-lane freeway with three-lane frontage roads, on the east; Spring Valley Road, a six-lane divided arterial with a tunnel section at Central Expressway, on the south; and single-family residences and an auto sales lot on the north. The area is also served by bus routes and is located two-thirds of a mile from a Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light rail station at its closest point (two miles at its furthest distance).

Over half of the land in the Corridor was previously zoned Mixed Use. While this zoning category allowed a developer/landowner to choose from a list of residential, retail, office, institutional and other uses, it did not permit the combination of residential and non-residential activities in a single building or on a single lot. Land within the study area along Central Expressway was zoned either Local Retail or Commercial.

In the West Spring Valley Corridor, there is a mix of:

1,625 older apartment units, originally built in the mid to late 1960’s and early 1970’s

486 condominiums, built between 1964 and 1981

66 duplex units, most built from 2004 to 2007

99,045 square feet of aging, underperforming commercial space anchoring either end of the Corridor

A few miscellaneous uses dispersed throughout the Corridor.

In May of 2011, the City Council approved a unique set of Planned Development (PD) regulations that will implement the community's vision of an active mixed-use environment. This vision was created in a series of public meetings, focus groups, individual interviews, City Council and City Plan Commission briefings, and discussions with property owners. Refinements to the regulations were subsequently approved, and the PD Ordinance as amended now governs both existing and future development in the West Spring Valley Corridor.